Energy "Meeting"—Part Deux

Aright, as S. already mentioned, this "meeting" was treated as more of a presentation than a true meeting. It started several minutes late, and ran considerably beyond the times stated on the agenda. (The agenda, I point out, also had almost half of the speakers' email addresses listed incorrectly.) I truly did not get very much out of the meeting (and halfway through I zoned out so badly that I honestly have little to no memory of an entire 15 minutes of one of the speaker's presentations: my apologies dude, but you were not destined to be a great public speaker...) I did, however, jot down some notes (in the interest of keeping myself, well, interested), which I will share. These notes are not particularly useful to anyone, necessarily, but I found them worth jotting.

Jim Boone (staff counsel of the Public Service Commission—he's the guy that came back, with back-up of Phil Vandeerheyden—Assistant Director of Economics and Policy Analysis of the Md Public Service Commission) was the first to speak. He mostly just restated the stuff he said last time, before turning it over to Phil Vandeerheyden, who didn't have anything terribly new to say either, but did go into a little more detail. I consider the highlight of their presentation the part where an audience member walked out in disgust after not getting his question answered.

I learned about the Maryland Office of the People's Counsel from the second speaker, Paula Carmody (People's Counsel.) You can read more about what they do on their website, but, as a start, they will help people who have complaints against their utility services (gas, electric, phone, water), which is nice to know. Quick note here: I consider this to be the only useful information that I got from this meeting.

Izzy Patoka, Executive Director of Community Initiatives spoke about what the aforementioned office does. I'm really not sure why he was there...

Next up to speak was Senator Rob Garagiola, (who lives in Germantown, although I'm not sure why he mentioned that...) His district covers from Bethesda up to the Frederick County line (he was also, according to Rona Kramer's representative, "Kristen"—who was very quiet, did not introduce herself, and sat in the back— late due to traffic. I'll bet. That's a long way to drive.) He also, apparently, serves on the Senate finance committee, and the only earthly reason I can see for his being at this meeting was his involvement with a bill (Senate Bill 595) that apparently requires the energy companies to purchase a certain percentage solar (umm...wouldn't that be MORE expensive for consumers?). That doesn't really explain why he was there, but there is an energy connection, at least. He was very pro-solar. Oh, and his favorite word is, apparently, incentivize (can also be used--and was--in the form: incentivizing). Now that's a doozie.

The next speaker was Chris Rice, Program Manager for a bunch of things for the MEA, including biomass, and transportation. He actually (and public speaking by the way is not this guy's strength...) contradicted what several other speakers had stated. You see, several people said that by decreasing our energy consumption, we would effectively "force" energy companies to lower their rates. What Chris Rice said actually rang a little more true. He said that while that might lower YOUR bill, he can't really see that it would have the effect of actually lowering cost. He also mentioned that he was sorry the Senator had to leave (he had "another thing" to get to, and rushed off—after taking up quite a bit of meeting time...so he can't have been in too much of a rush...) and proceeded to say nothing but good things about the Senator's energy initiatives. He talked about liquid fuel and transportation (What happened to electricity? Where did cars come into this? Is Citizens Involved trying to take on gas pricing now?) and the need to improve distribution infrastructure. Right. (By this point in the meeting about half of the audience had either left or keeled over) Oh, and he mentioned "cellulosic ethanol" research (that is, research on how much wood waste, etc Maryland has available to turn into ethanol...it seems they're formulating a report of available resources). It gets better, though. Apparently the technology to do that isn't really available yet... but by george, when it is, Maryland will be ready! (My apologies...my notes started getting a little bit sketchy by this point in the meeting...)

Next, Susan Kirby from Montgomery County's Department of Environmental Protection came up to speak to us about "Clean Energy Rewards" which, quite frankly, I wasn't terribly interested in. At least she was a fairly good public speaker and woke me back up. I actually don't seem to have many notes on her presentation, although there was a Price Comparison Worksheet that I picked up. I also recall she explained how Renewable Energy Certificates work by saying that they are like buying a stock or buying into a company.

Ummm, what else? Well, the woman from the Solar energy company (Capital Sun Group) came back to speak and told us how the company offers assessments for $200 a pop (less if you talk your neighbors into getting one, too.) And we finished up with a couple of questions, that I actually don't really remember. We didn't stay through all of the questions and frankly, I think it shows incredible perseverance that we made it through all of the speakers.

In summary, those are 2 hours of my life that I will never get back. I kind of wish we had gone to the (open to the public) East County Citizens Advisory board meeting (held at the same time...which of course I didn't know until the next day...) instead. At least they encourage questions and comments, unlike some "meetings."

Citizens UNinvolved

As promised my guest blogger, sparow, and I went to the Citizens Involved meeting Wednesday. And, just as I had thought this meeting was utterly pointless. Somehow more pointless than the first meeting we attended. Ms. York was very happy to trot out her little guest speakers. The same guy from the Public Service Commission came back for what I'm sure he thought would be another round of bashing—this time with back up however. It should be noted that one person in attendance attempted to ask a question of the speaker from the PSC. However, no sooner had the gentleman opened his mouth than he was rudely interrupted by Ms. York who stated that all questions will he held till after the speakers had finished. This man then walked out of the meeting in disgust. Ms. York: would you kindly inform me and the readers of this blog how in the hell you expect any citizen to be involved if you do not allow them to question your speakers?

Again, Ms York proved her inability to run a meeting when, instead of informing speakers that they had exceeded the time provided them, she allowed them to go on with their spiels while sitting back and beaming at them like a proud little puppy. (Jesus woman you drafted the damned agenda!) Oh yes and these speakers....why was a State rep that DOES NOT REPRESENT THIS DISTRICT even invited?? Much less allowed to droll on about how great he is for 45 minutes? Ms York was very proud of him though. She was quite the proud little puppy.

In closing, I can only determine that this Citizens Involved group is utterly pointless and will accomplish nothing. This really is too bad as they could be very helpful to East County. They will not be though...at least not with Ms. York at the helm.

With that I turn this post over to my guest blogger , SPAROW for her insight.

You Can Buy Peoples' Rights for a Buck??

First just to be clear. I'm an engineer, not a journalist. I have never said I was a journalist. I write this blog to get the "news" of what's going on in East County and the Briggs Chaney area out to the public, yes. However, this "news" is not and never will be "Fair and Balanced." It is tainted with my personal opinion.

Disclaimer said I will move on.

It seems (as we all know) that DT Silver Spring is NOT a public space. At least not in the eyes of the developers. We all know about the Photo Walk. I was there, as were many other (and may I add better) bloggers (Just Up the Pike, Silver Spring Penguin, Silver Spring Scene), so I'm not going to beat a dead horse here. I would like to note that the Fourth of July was a great day for this. Also, did I mention this took place on Independence Day? A NATIONAL HOLIDAY?? Why, then, was the only US Flag to be seen in Silver Spring the one that is always there? Did the Peterson Cos FORGET that it was the Fourth of July? Oh wait maybe they did, given that they FORGOT that the public has rights in public space. Hell the People's Republic of Takoma Park goes all out decorating for the Fourth. I was rather dismayed and slightly offended that Silver Spring wasn't decked out in red, white, and blue.

In my opinion, this photo walk was good. I'm glad it happened and I think that maybe, just maybe, a few more people know what happened to Chip and the stance of the Peterson Cos. However, I hope it doesn't stop there. As a tax payer I would like to know why the Peterson Cos even THINK that Silver Spring is all theirs. Yes, I understand that this lease with MoCo more or less says that they can do as they please but someone please tell me why that was ever allowed to happen? We, as tax payers, are paying for policing, paying for trash pick up, paying for snow removal, paying for street upkeep. If MoCo had sold that block to Peterson, fine. I understand that the company would want to set their own rules on their own property. I'd even fully support that. The thing is MoCo DIDN'T sell them the land. Peterson is LEASING it. This isn't the end of this battle I fear. Yes, we can go and take pictures for now. (It should be noted that Peterson manages to capitalize on the photo walk by sponsoring a Silver Spring Photo Competition. No doubt this was the idea of newsman-turned rights sucking parasite lawyer IJ Hudson. I'm sorry the man spoke at my High School graduation now.) But if someone on the County or State level doesn't step in and make it clear that this land was developed and is maintained with tax payer dollars, PUBLIC FUNDS, the Peterson Cos will continue ignoring our rights for their own financial gain.

In closing, I urge everyone that took pictures at the photo walk (you can see the rest of our photo walk photos here) NOT to enter their pictures in the Silver Spring photo contest. Doing so, I feel, would deeply undermine anything (no matter how small) that was accomplished yesterday.

Guest Blogger and DBTR Kicks M$ to the curb

Okay, so many things to cover so little time. First there's the Down Town SS Photo Walk, the Fourth of July, my new guest blogger.....damn!! Okay, for starters, Dan of JUTP pointed something out to me today at the aforementioned photo walk (great thing more later). It seems that this part of East County is more or less the bastard child of MoCo. A lot goes on up here but for some reason it's like this part of the county doesn't exist in the minds of those in Rockville. That said, I have realized that I owe the few people that read this blog updates on life, news, whatever in east county. To that end, my fiance Sparow, of www.suburbangard.blogspot.com has kindly asked to be a guest blogger here on Down by the River. This is good as I have less time lately to devote to this than I like. She is also my editor because as some noted today, I can't spell. I am glad to have her here and feel that her insight and feelings on all things East County will benefit this blog (and I hope the few people that read it) well.

That said, I will post more on the Photo Walk later. Tomorrow I hope. I would also like to note that this post comes to you from Ubuntu Linux. Yes, I'm a geek. I have kicked Microsoft to the curb. It's a very liberating feeling. You should try it. As always, please leave your comments.

Happy Fourth Of July!!

Steve